By David Elvir
Staff Writer
Trevecca’s newly added STUNT program is officially underway and is getting ready for its inaugural season. Announced in December 2022, Trevecca will feature in its first STUNT competition in February 2024.
Kelly Quigley was appointed as the head coach to lead this first STUNT season. Quigley has a competitive background with the South Jersey Storm (2006-2011), World Cup All-Stars (2011- 2014) and the University of Delaware (2014-2016). She had also already worked with Trevecca’s cheerleading program as a volunteer.
Quigley’s experience in the sport accelerated Trevecca’s plan to integrate the sport at the university, as it was originally planned to be introduced in the next five years.
“I think just talking about my love for STUNT and my knowledge of the sport and how many colleagues I still have in the sport… talking about my goals and about my future plans and ideas, I think absolutely you could say that was the catalyst for sure,” Quigley said.
STUNT, believed to be the fastest-growing intercollegiate sport in the country, is not widely known among common sports fans.
“If you think about your competitive cheerleading that you see on TV, you take out the components of those and turn it into a four-quarter game,” said Quigley.
STUNT is a competitive event that pits two schools against each other in four quarters of action. Typically lasting between 45 to 60 minutes, the competition is scored based on how well participants execute their routines. The four quarters of a STUNT game encompass partner stunts, pyramids/tosses, jumps/tumbling and a team compulsory routine.
After a long period of recruiting, Trevecca’s STUNT team is complete and has started their 20-hour in-season practices.
“Recruiting was tough. It’s very hard when you don’t have a team or a foundation or a basis to kind of promote to people. For this first season, as I was recruiting, I was very much promoting what I wanted the team to be: my goals and ideas for the team and also just promoting myself as a coach,” Quigley said. “I really looked for not necessarily the most skilled athletes—even though all of our athletes are extremely skilled— but I feel I looked more for good people that could commit themselves to starting a program from scratch.”
Trevecca’s STUNT roster consists of 27 athletes out of which 21 are freshmen and only one is a senior.
The STUNT team invites the Trojan fan base to follow the team, as they assure it is something they have never seen before.
“It is truly like nothing you have ever seen before. Anything you think you know about cheerleading, it is completely different,” Quigley said. “I’ve never felt an adrenaline rush like a STUNT game. It’s head-to-head. You can see your opponent across the mat. it’s so different than any other sport.”
The Trojans will kick off competitively against Mercyhurst in 2024 and will have their first home tournament on Feb. 2 and 3.
